John's gas a
qualification for the Cabinet, and that a sick minister applying to this
dispenser of all virtue, would be on his legs in the House, and making
a victorious speech within the twenty-four hours? What will become of
the battalion of beauties who, at every puff of the gas-pipe, ran to
their mirrors, and received the congratulations of the surrounding
dandies, or the revived carnation of their cheeks? "Othello's
occupation's o'er." But a St. John Long, of some kind or other, is
so essential to the West-end world, that a successor must be rapidly
erected in his room. Every age has its St. John Long, formed by the
mere necessities of the opulent and idle. A new Perkins, with a packet
of metallic tractors on a new scale would be extremely acceptable in
any handsome street in the neighbourhood of Grosvenor-square. Animal
magnetism would thrive prodigiously between this and the dust-months,
when London is left to the guardsmen and the cab-drivers; and when, as
Lady Jersey says, nobody who is anybody is to be seen in the streets
from morning till night, that is, from three till six. But the true
man of success would be Dr.
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